The plays of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival show clearly the festival's commitment to diversity. Characters of all colors and genders appear.

And the work of OSF extends well beyond the boundaries of its stages. The education department at the Festival reaches out to the community in a number of ways, including an upcoming project called "Take Them Into the Dirt."

But as they have pointed out in the past, pertussis is not something to take lightly. It's one of those diseases that had become rare until parents concerned about vaccines stopped having children vaccinated against it.

Now under-vaccinated students are required to stay out of school for three full weeks, and that includes students who came in contact with the children with confirmed cases. 27 were excluded at first, down to 18 as of September 25th.

California has filed a lawsuit against President Trump’s border wall. The suit filed Wednesday argues that plans to begin construction in San Diego and Imperial counties could harm the state’s sensitive environmental resources.

For nearly two decades, Willie Watson has made modern folk music rooted in older traditions. He’s a folksinger in the classic sense: a singer, storyteller, and traveler, with a catalog of songs that bridge the gap between the past and present. On Folksinger Vol. 2, he acts as a modern interpreter of older songs, passing along his own version of the music that came long before him.

Southern Oregon University has recovered less than a third of the $1.9 million it was bilked out of in an email fraud earlier this year.

In April, the university wired $1.9 million to fraudsters posing as the construction contractor for the McNeal Pavilion and Student Recreation Center project. Of that amount, $609,000 was recovered earlier this summer, according to SOU spokesman Joe Mosley.

FINAL UPDATE: TUESDAY, SEPT. 19 ... Continued wet, cool weather has largely dampened the Chetco Bar fire, which now stands at 190,512 acres and is 68 percent contained.

This will be our final update on the Chetco Bar fire in this separate post, barring an unexpected serious fire threat. We'll continue to post daily updates on size and containment as part of our Oregon Wildfire Roundup post.

FINAL UPDATE: TUESDAY, SEPT. 19 ... Rain over the past few days throughout southern Oregon and northern California has dampened the wildfires and cleared the air, so much so that, as of this morning, the Air Quality Index readings in the JPR listening area are all in the "GOOD" range, except for two locations near the Oregon coast. And those readings (in Gold Beach and Agness) are "MODERATE."